On a Mission

I am responding to the news of the world with a series of text-artworks made from the boldface type on the front page of The New York Times each day. My goal is to usurp the highly charged words of which headlines are made. By rearranging them into an aphorism or poem or wisecrack I can take those words back. I am uncovering a story that lurks beneath the headlines. Some of my BOLDFACE pages are truth. Some of them are lies. (Funny, there IS a difference.) Political humor and artworks made from newspapers have historic precedents in art history.

I invite everyone to take an exacto knife and a glue stick and slice up their own newspapers. BOLDFACE requires a John Cage-ian reliance on the given elements—the headline on a day. Within that framework, art happens. Talk back. Let your hands act out and show the world your BOLDFACE. Plans are being concocted to create a phone app so that everyone can make their own headlines in a digital format.

The artist's book THE FIRST 100 DAYS IN THE DARK, with prints from each day's poem January 20 to April 29, 2017, in an edition of 100 copies, is being handled by Vamp & Tramp Booksellers. It is on its way into artists books collections in prestigious venues...more on that when it's all official. The book is a leather-bound post card collector's album. See http://www.vampandtramp.com/html/order.html to reach the book dealers. I am happy to say that the book is now in the collections of Franklin Furnace, Scripps College and the Womens Studio Workshop.